Separation Anxiety

By

Abigail Thernstrom and

Stephan Thernstrom

Updated Nov. 30, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET

Fisk University is in such dire financial straits that it is considering selling off part of its valuable art collection. The Nashville, Tenn., school is one of the nation's 103 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and its money problems raise an obvious question: Half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, should we still support an institution of higher education that is less than 1% white?

In 1992, the Supreme Court held in U.S. v. Fordice that racially identifiable institutions of higher...